Hutchinson, the former 9th Ward alderman who still faces unrelated bribery charges in the federal Operation Incubator probe, was convicted along with seven others. A ninth defendant was acquitted.

Hutchinson was convicted of mail and tax fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and racketeering.

Prosecutors had argued that Hutchinson was one of the ``masterminds`` of the scam, which began in 1980 and continued through 1986. Another leader was Forest Bailey, an insurance agent who arranged for the fraudulent coverage and who also was convicted.

Convicted Thursday along with Hutchinson and Bailey were Steve Johnson, another insurance agent, and five people who acted as ``victims:`` Cornell Stokes, Carl Langley, Margaret Neely, Ben Israel and Joyce Jones. Nolan Harrison, who was charged with falsifying employment records, was acquitted.

Although the trial revealed a sophiscated scam to swindle insurance companies, the conspirators were caught because they used the same driver in 13 of the accidents, said Mark Pollack, an assistant U.S. attorney.

The insurance industry noticed that ``the same driver was in 13 accidents in six months,`` Pollack said. ``It raised some eyebrows.``

It also prompted an investigation that led to a man named McPherson Davis, who agreed to cooperate with authorities and eventually taped a conversation he had with Hutchinson.

Davis had been one of the ``victims`` who were recruited and briefed about their roles before going to sites chosen for the staged accidents, according to prosecutors Pollack and James Ferguson.

Most of the ``accidents`` took place in private parking lots so that participants could avoid being ticketed for traffic violations, the prosecutors said. Victims would play the part of pedestrians who were hit by cars while walking through the lots.

The drivers also were in on the plan and faked the collisions while the

``victims`` screamed in mock pain.

Pollack said the victims generally feigned hard-to-detect injuries in such areas as the back and neck. All were taken to hospitals to be treated for their fake maladies, he said.

The trial included the tape recorded by Davis, who wore a recorder when he met Hutchinson at a South Side steak house. Prosecutors said Hutchinson urged Davis to lie to a grand jury investigating the scam.

``You know, it`s been so long you can`t remember anything, so you can`t say nothing,`` Hutchinson was heard to say on the tape. The tape was recorded last year, on the night before Hutchinson was defeated in his re-election effort.

``On the day before his election . . . he`s talking to Davis because the vote he is worried about is not the election vote, but the vote of the grand jury,`` Ferguson said.

Yet during the trial`s closing arguments last week, Hutchinson`s lawyer argued that the secret tape actually proved his client`s innocence.

``The proof in this recording is one of innocence,`` attorney Donald Bertucci said in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Ann Williams.

During his testimony, Davis had pointed to several examples on the tapes that he said showed Hutchinson was coaching him to lie. But Bertucci said Davis was interpreting the tapes and that the words showed that Hutchinson

``never told him to lie. He said if you don`t know . . . don`t say anything,`` Bertucci said.

As he left the courtroom Thursday, Bertucci said he would appeal the case on the basis that he wasn`t allowed to present evidence that could have discredited prosecution witnesses.

Exclusion of that evidence, he said, had turned witnesses from ``sinners into saints`` in the eyes of the jurors.

Along with Davis, some other participants in the scam pleaded guilty before the trial and testified against their former co-conspirators. They included Aaron Long, a doctor who examined the ``victims`` and prepared reports for insurance companies; and Larry Lake, the driver in 13 of the incidents.

Hutchinson and the others convicted showed little reaction as the verdicts were read late Thursday, after 3 1/2 days of deliberations. But as he was leaving the courtroom, Bailey, an insurance agent for 16 years, said he was ``shocked and concerned`` about the outcome of the trial.

Since Hutchinson, 45, was indicted last year along with 28 others, 21 of those have pleaded guilty in the scheme.